Charlotte Gainsbourg Teams Up With Lars Von Trier (Again!)

It’s been known for a month or so that Lars Von Trier’s has been working on a disaster movie called Melancholia. The Danish auteur asked Penelope Cruz to take the lead role, but after viewing Breaking The Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Antichrist, she kindly said, “no, thanks.”

French site, Allo Cine, have it that Antichrist’s Charlotte Gainsbourg (an actor and singer who once did a duet with her famous father, Serge, called Lemon Incest) has plucked up the courage to accept the role instead, there’s no word yet if feminist-baiting self-mutilation is involved again. This is a first for Lars von Trier, who rather strangely has never worked with the same actress twice…wonder why that is, Lars?

Melancholia’s financial set-up is as dry as a very boring lecture on wicker basket making in 1770s Cornwall, but it’s a typical von Trier European co-production set up involving several countries, such as France, Germany, Denmark and their mortal enemy, Sweden… okay, maybe not mortal enemy.

Zentropa Ent. have released a solitary piece of concept art which depicts Earth being shadowed by a larger planet called Melancholia. Is it a metaphor? There are no other details of any kind other than it’s been called a, “psychological disaster movie”, it’s got a 10 million euro budget and Trier has been screaming at the press, “no more happy endings!”

Can’t wait.